Competition and Finance---A New Interpretation of Financial and Monetary Economics

Author: Kevin Dowd
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2005-04-01
Features: The book Competition and Finance offers a fresh perspective on the fields of finance and monetary economics. The first part begins with a coherent new analysis of contract design and capital structure to elaborate on financial economics, integrating agency theory, information economics, and recent developments in related fields into a unified theory of corporate finance. It then shifts to financial intermediaries, explaining why they emerged and why they adopted such forms. Each chapter introduces two simple forms of financial intermediaries—brokers and mutual funds. The next three chapters present a new view of banking economics, offering a new theory of banking reserves, but they also address various other banking issues—such as banking structure, a new analysis of domestic banking, a review of new theories on banking stability, and the pivotal role of central banking, among others.
Subsequently, the book discusses issues related to transaction media and payment systems and covers relevant content about monetary economics. Each chapter addresses the following topics: monetary competition; the mechanisms of convertible currency systems; the gold standard and bimetallic standard; basket-of-commodities standards; and inflationary economies. These discussions include both theoretical analysis and empirical evidence, and the appendix covers many additional topics, such as the real monetary system, price index structures, and monetary systems pegged to price indices.
The final chapter uses the framework developed in the book to analyze the current central banking system and inconvertible currencies, offering some recommendations for financial and monetary reforms.